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School or Streets, It's Your Choice

By

Allison D. Newman Guidance Counselor, New York Harbor School

Updated Dec. 30, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET

In recent weeks, the calm waters began to stir at the Harbor School. And for me, those mostly quiet seas became a tempest: my first home visit, my first call to Child Protective Services, the first transfer of a student, my first (and second and third) candid conversation with students about safe sex, and my first attempt at running both a "girls group" and a "guys group." I cried on the job for the first time.

My role as guidance counselor can be ambiguous. Sometimes it means that I handle...